Today I want to put two names in the same frame—Joan Baez and Taylor Swift—not because they sound alike or have the same values but because they tell us how the culture around music, fandom, and accessibility to their shows have changed in l...

In a recent episode, we spent time with a man who changed popular culture and then became a warning about what fame, isolation, and addiction can do to a single human body—Elvis Presley. Brilliant, iconic, but ultimately tragic.Today...

I’d like to begin, not in Liverpool or Hamburg or Abbey Road, but in an American living room—mine, and millions of others—on a Sunday night in 1964.It’s February 9th. The television is a piece of furniture. The picture is black and w...

Today we’re stepping into complicated territory.Not a personal hero of mine.Not a composer whose scores I pore over, or a bandleader whose arrangements I quote with delight or a singer I enjoy listening to.We’ve just ...

Before we talk about charts and riffs and influence, I want to begin with a memory.Years ago, I saw Chuck Berry live at the Paramount Theatre in Manhattan. I later learned that a few years after that, the Paramount Theater was ...